June 16, 2016
Satire in the Arab world
Proving that satire (and/or bad acting) is alive and well in the Arab world, Egyptian television show "Mini Daesh" takes the concept of a prank show to its ultimate extreme, pretending to have Egyptian television celebrities kidnapped by ISIS..
Australian Election-filter: The ends justify the memes
As Australia shudders towards to its Federal election on 2 July 2016, the Guardian considers the gusto (and desperate incompetence) with which politi-tragics have adopted internet memes. [more inside]
Welcome to Congress! Here's your cubicle, telephone and script.
What's a day in the life of a typical elected U.S. congressperson like? Do you imagine various committee meetings, constituent handshaking and House floor voting sessions? Well think again. Members of congress are increasingly expected to spend the majority of their working day holed up in a tiny cubicle in a call center down the street outfitted with a phone, a list of numbers and a telemarketing script. On April 24, CBS's 60 Minutes aired an exposé on the real business of congress: dialing for dollars. [more inside]
It doesn't smell good, but it smells better than it used to.
On Tuesday, the AspireAssist (previously), a non-surgical weight loss device that allows patients to drain up to 30% of the food from their stomachs before the calories are absorbed, was approved by the FDA. Any resemblance to fictitious devices is presumably unintended.
You won't believe what happens next.
We’re all rooting for you and/or plotting against you.
From The Desk Of The Director Of The Cold War Reenactment Society by MeFi's Own The Whelk! [via mefi projects]
If I leave here tomorrow, would you still remember me?
The origins of Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'Free Bird' are pretty brief. In this 1970 demo (source), you can hear a short version, with the opening question but no piano intro and extended jam at the end. Though they recorded a long version for their debut album, they also cut a short version for the single. But people want "guitar sagas", such as "Whipping Post," by the Allman Brothers Band,and "Smoke on the Water," by Deep Purple, or maybe it was a silly thing to heckle Florence Henderson and other uncool cats. Decades later, people are still yelling "Freebird!" Sometimes people snap back, like Bill Hicks (NSFW), and sometimes people oblige, like Bob Dylan recently. In case that's not enough, there's (always) more! [more inside]
"The cable people tell me, 'People calling in. Do some more polka'"
Polka Spotlight is the 20-year-old TV show where the party never ends. Yes, a couple of full episodes are available, with 100% genuine community access TV graphics!
"Let's drug-test the rich before approving tax deductions."
US Congresswoman Gwen Moore is tired of the "criminalization of poverty." Moore plans to introduce a bill on Thursday that she thinks will even the playing field or, at least, “engage the wealthy in a conversation about what fair tax policy looks like”. The bill, called the Top 1% Accountability Act, would force taxpayers with itemized deductions of more than $150,000 – which, according to 2011 tax data compiled by the IRS, would only be households with a yearly federal adjusted gross income of more than $1m – to submit to the IRS a clear drug test from a sample no more than three months old, or take the much lower standard deduction when filing their taxes. [more inside]
A pleasant place. Everything's nice here.
Need a break? Videoart.lol lets you doodle over Bob Ross videos, along with the rest of the internet. Ahhhh... there we go.
tastiest
How To Cook Shad
Shad no longer enjoys the favor it once did. The world’s greatest herring, its Latin name, Alosa sapidissima, means “the best shad to eat.” whole books have been dedicated to singing shad’s praises. George Washington was fond of the fish, and Thomas Jefferson always had it on his spring menus. Every restaurant from the Canadian Maritimes down to Florida would feature shad and its wonderful roe on spring menus; a few still do. Then, in the 1870s, we brought shad West, and the species surpassed anyone’s wildest dream of success. The Columbia River run numbers 3 million or more, even today. In 1917, the commercial shad fishery netted nearly 6 million pounds of shad here in Sacramento. ...So what happened? The fish stocks are fine here in the West, and, after a long struggle, are recovering in the polluted East. What happened was, in a word, laziness.[more inside]
Now You Can Visit the Oldest Library in the World
al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez, Morocco, is the oldest library in the world, but until last month, only researchers had access to it. Built in 859, the library was a beacon for scholars, poets, and theologians for hundreds of years, but in recent years it had fallen into terrible disrepair. Now a massive, three-year restoration effort hasn’t just revitalized the building – it’s opened an ancient center of scholarship up to a new generation of readers!
The Uncanny Mind That Built Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin invented the world's hottest new cryptocurrency and inspired a movement — before he'd turned 20 - "I think a large part of the consequence is necessarily going to be disempowering some of these centralized players to some extent because ultimately power is a zero sum game. And if you talk about empowering the little guy, as much as you want to couch it in flowery terminology that makes it sound fluffy and good, you are necessarily disempowering the big guy. And personally I say screw the big guy. They have enough money already." [more inside]
The GMZ
"The federal government should establish neighborhood anti-gentrification zones where vulnerable tenants could purchase their apartment buildings away from predatory landlords, according to a policy report revealed today by Democratic State Senator Adriano Espaillat."
rest in power
British Labour MP Jo Cox, 41, was shot and murdered this afternoon during a constituency meeting in Leeds.
Cox was a committed humanitarian and campaigner for Syrian refugees and previously worked on the 2008 Obama campaign. She is the first MP to be killed in 26 years.
You're supposed to email and wait for a reply
What it's like to work for the new on-demand economy.
Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City
Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City: The New York City public-school system is 41 percent Latino, 27 percent black and 16 percent Asian. Three-quarters of all students are low-income. In 2014, the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, released a report showing that New York City public schools are among the most segregated in the country. Black and Latino children here have become increasingly isolated, with 85 percent of black students and 75 percent of Latino students attending “intensely” segregated schools — schools that are less than 10 percent white. [more inside]
Real Life is Marscraft
A young man named Cody with a nervous giggle restores an old mine over the course of 12 videos (and counting).
He also raises bees, builds rockets, makes heavy water, has a homemade experimental greenhouse, and refines precious metals (including platinum from road dust, previously).
And he really, really wants to go to Mars.
When you make an organization, that is a form of expression
A recent profile in, of all places, Bloomberg Businessweek heaped praise on the innovative business model of Tim & Eric’s blooming comedy production company, Abso Lutely Productions — but only dipped a hesitant toe into the actual comedy itself. The profile appraised the comedians’ zeitgeist-establishing sketch show, Tim & Eric’s Awesome Show, with what certainly sounds like a dismissal: “The editing was shaky, the acting was worse, the story lines were threadbare, the lighting and music were epileptic.” ...These surprisingly unflattering moments within supposedly flattering reviews confuse me because, as a pretty dedicated fan... I don’t see anything reflected in the reviews that I actually enjoy about the original work. I see additional, thoughtful, layers in the work of Tim & Eric, but I’ve never seen anybody try to articulate that thoughtfulness. [more inside]
No tomorrows' parties
All Tomorrow's Parties, the independent festival organisation, is shutting down with immediate effect. [more inside]
So inedible, yet so delicious-looking.
Kristina Lechner creates fake food with everyday household objects at her site, Food Not Food. More lovely photos at her Instagram account for the project.
Hey, there, Lonelygirl15.
Lonelygirl15: how one mysterious vlogger changed the internet. The Guardian interviews the creators and actors involved in one of YouTube's greatest virals. Mefi originally discussed the mystery at the end of August 2006. Within a week the truth was revealed.
"Jesus said to them, My wife."
The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus' Wife is an article by Ariel Sabar about his quest to trace the providence of a manuscript fragment in which Jesus refers to his wife. The trail leads from Harvard through old East Germany to the Floridian swingers' scene.
The Privilege of Longer Working Hours
We used to think that as living standards improved, less work would deliver more income and thus more leisure time. But now, more and more work hours are what everyone's after. Because in today's economy, the alternative to working more isn't enjoying quality time with friends and family. The alternative is nothing. The American workplace has basically become a Thunderdome where the victors are rewarded with long hours. How insane work hours became a mark of American privilege by Jeff Spross in The Week [via NextDraft]
The only question is: What are you going to wear?
Lingerie is not Armor - in the latest installment of Women vs Tropes in Video Games Anita Sarkeesian focuses on the sartorial choices made for female characters in video games. Link not safe for work as it contains virtual partial nudity.
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